The scientific formula for the perfect pancake

From the batter to the cooking these tips should make Pancake Day a success.

From the precise diameter of the perfect pancake to understanding your ' baker 's ratio' Professor Ian Eames is a fluid mechanics expert from UCL .

He said: 'The characteristics of your pancake are determined by the baker 's ratio, which is an indication of how much liquid is in your mixture, and the thickness of your batter.

Professor Sellier and his co-authors created an algorithm to predict the optimal way of tilting the pan.

As the hot pan transfers heat to the batter it goes from behaving more like a liquid to a solid.

So, trying to spread the batter around from the centre leads to uneven thickness and holes.